Seika Boye

Seika Boye is a scholar, writer, educator and artist whose practices revolve around dance and movement. She is an Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream and Director, Institute for Dance Studies at the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Toronto.

From 1995-2010 Seika performed and presented her choreography across Canada. She danced professionally with Ballet Creole, Electric Company Theatre, Judith Marcuse Projects and many independent artists. Most recently, Seika has worked as a movement dramaturg with artists including Natasha Powell/Holla Jazz, Syreeta Hector, Mix Mix Dance Collective, Deanna Bowen, Heidi Struass/adelheid dance (re*research choreographic intensive) and Djanet Sears. 

Invested in movement histories and the archive, Seika’s research explores blackness and dancing in Canada and embodied learning and pedagogy. She curated the archival exhibition It’s About Time: Dancing Black in Canada 1900-1970 (2018) and co-curated Into the Light: Eugenics and Education in Southern Ontario (2019). Her publications include writing for Dance Chronicle, Canadian Theatre Review, alt.theatre, The Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism, Performance Matters, Dance Collection Danse Magazine and The Dance Current. From 2004-2010 Seika worked in various archival and editorial capacities at Dance Collection Danse Archives and Publisher. Seika is the co-editor/contributor with Thomas F DeFrantz, of Configurations in Motion: Performance Curation and Communities of Colour, 3rd Edition (2017).

Seika is an award winning and sought-after speaker, instructor and consultant in the performing arts sector. She is the recipient of the Ontario Graduate Scholarship (2011-12) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral Fellowship (2012-14). She was an Artist-in-Residence at the Art Gallery of Ontario (2018), Toronto District School Board's African Heritage Educators’ Network Arts Honoree (2019) and a 2020 recipient of the Lieutenant Governor’s Heritage Trust Award (co-curator, Into the Light). Seika is currently a co-investigator on Gatherings: archival and oral histories of Canadian performance (SSHRC Partnership Development Grant).  

Seika lives and works in Toronto with her husband and their two sons. 

Amy Bowring

Curatorial Director, Dance Collection Danse

Amy Bowring holds an honours B.A. in Fine Arts Studies from York University and an M.A. in Journalism from the University of Western Ontario. She is the Executive and Curatorial Director at Dance Collection Danse where she was mentored by founders Lawrence and Miriam Adams, and has been involved with the organization in various capacities since 1993. She is one of Canada’s foremost advocates for the study and preservation of Canadian dance heritage. A dance writer and historian, Amy has published numerous historical essays and articles for books, academic journals, and magazines. She also curates live and virtual exhibitions on various topics in dance, and teaches dance history at Ryerson University. Amy is a co-recipient of the 2002 Toronto Emerging Dance Artist Award for her work as a dance writer. She has contributed to various boards and committees in the arts and museum sectors. Amy is the editor of Down to Bowring’s: A Memoir written by her grandfather, Derrick Bowring (Creative Book Publishers, 2015). Her book, Navigating Home: Artists of the NL Dance Project, was published in 2019. For It's About Time, Amy acted as the commissioning curator for the original exhibition in 2018.

Carolyn Jervis

Curatorial Director, Mitchell Art Gallery

Carolyn Jervis is the founding director / curator of the John and Maggie Mitchell Art Gallery at MacEwan University. She has spent over a decade engaged in cultural work focussed on relational and equitable practices. Carolyn previously held positions at institutions such as the Art Gallery of Alberta, Latitude 53, and the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery. As an art writer and critic, her work has been published nationally, including in Canadian Art and C Magazine, as well as in exhibition monographs and catalogue essays for galleries in Canada and Germany. Carolyn has an MA in Art History, Critical Curatorial Studies, from the University of British Columbia. For It's About Time, Carolyn was the commissioning curator of the 2020 exhibition in Edmonton. She collaborated on the structure of bringing in artists to create artistic responses to the archival materials presented.

Ilana Khanin

Project Manager (2022 - )

Ilana Khanin is PhD candidate at the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Toronto. Her SSHRC-funded research examines the intersection of performance and blockchain technology.

Elise Tigges

Communications Coordinator (2024 - )

Elise Tigges is a dance artist, educator, and administrator based in Toronto, Ontario. Originally from Vancouver, BC, she is a graduate of the George Brown Dance Performance program. Elise has performed at New Blue Emerging Dance as a part of the Creative Crunch project, with the Garage TO dance collective, REAson d’etre dance, and Ballet Jörgen. She has choreographed for the George Brown Dance Ensemble program, and had her work presented in Toronto’s Lights Dance Festival and GBD’s Unleashed. Elise is also the co-founder of the arts collective, Lofty Goal Project. She has extensive arts education and administration experience, developing and delivering programming across Canada, and has had her writing published in The Dance Current. Elise is currently completing an undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto.

Funmilola Cole

Research Assistant (2023 - )

Parita Patel

UX Designer, Interactive Graphic Recordings (2024-)

Parita Patel is a graduate of the Master of Information (UX Design) program at the University of Toronto. She also holds a B.A. (Visharad) in Kathak, which is an Indian Classical dance form, and a B. Tech in Information and Communication Technology. She is thrilled to be a part of the It's About Time team as UX Designer, and get the opportunity to combine her passion for design and dance. Parita is a dance choreographer for Spicy Vindaloos, a Bollywood dance group based in Toronto. Currently, she is working as a Learning Abroad Coordinator at the University of Toronto.

Sergio Serrano

Graphic Designer

Sergio Serrano is a graphic designer and artist born in Mexico, now based in Canada. His design work focuses on the arts and education — working with artist-run centres, individual artists and institutions such as the University of Alberta, MacEwan University, and Concordia. For It's About Time, Sergio designed some of the print and digital materials for the 2020 exhibition in Edmonton.

Emilie Jabouin

Research Assistant (2022 - 2023)

Emilie Jabouin (Zila for stage), is a curious intuitive dance artist and researcher who uses her story-telling abilities for collective liberation, and engages in performance and research projects that focus on social transformation, reparations and collective healing. Trained in Ballet, Jazz, Modern, and Caribbean dance forms, Emilie has performed with Ballet Creole, Kashedance, Ronald Taylor Dance, Mafa Dance Village, Esie Mensah, and Lua Shayenne Dance Company. She also has an ongoing collaborative relationship with performer Camille Turner. She is completing a PhD in communication studies on Black women writers, journalists and organizers in the early twentieth-century in Canada. Under the mentorship of master drummer, Haitian teacher and choreographer Peniel Guerrier, she has also embarked on her path of learning, sharing and living Haitian culture through folk drumming, singing and dancing; a journey home. She now offers a series of introductory movement classes to heal the body, mind and spirit through movement, chanting and rhythm exploration for various levels and abilities. In 2020, she merged her art and research practices and founded a multi-faceted research, performance, and production company, Emirj Projects, which offers research, production and artistic services to help creatives manifest their vision (www.emirj.ca). Emilie is the author of an article on Black women jazz dancers in mid-twentieth-century in Montréal, published in the Winter 2021 Special Issue of the Canadian Journal of History on Black creative practices.

Rohan Kulkarni

Communications Coordinator and Research Assistant (2019-2021)

Rohan Kulkarni has worked as a dramaturg, arts administrator, researcher, communications professional, and educator. He is thrilled to be part of the It's About Time team as Communications Coordinator. Rohan holds an MA from University of Alberta, where he has also taught in the Drama department. He is passionate about bringing the arts to young people and new audiences through education and outreach. Currently, he works as the Education Manager at Soulpepper Theatre.